WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT ALFIE?

When Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote his famous poem about Xanadu, he was in
an opiuminduced trance. But was he predicting the rise of Allan Langer?

Is Alph a 19th century spelling of "Alf", nickname of Australia's most
explosive halfback? After all, Langer is poetry in motion.

Furthermore, the Broncos captain is a sacred current to the hero-starved
Queenslanders.

Put such questions to Langer, and he says: "I don't know, mate. I just
like me footie."

The 26-year-old is the most talented football player in Australia today.

He is the biggest obstacle to St George winning the grand final.

He is the most popular sportsman in Queensland.

As an indication of his popularity, before Langer began doing commercials
for Tip Top bread, the bakery was selling 10,000 loaves a week in Brisbane.
Within a month of the commercials going to air, Tip Top were selling 60,000
loaves a week. Current weekly sales top 90,000.

When told this is because the woman is his mother, they say: "But she
looks so much like him," as if television were an act, not part of the real
world.

The advertisement's success comes because Langer behaves on television the
same as he does in person.

In a State of wide verandahs, open faces and broad-brimmed hats,
Queenslanders warm to the unvarnished person.

Ask Langer how his nickname "Alf" originated, and he says: "Alien Life
Form".

"When I made the State of Origin team in 1987 I was the only bloke from
Ipswich. They reckon we have two heads."

But now the Ipswich-born Walters brothers have become Australian players,
hasn't the home town lost its reputation?

Isn't Logan now the city of two-headed people?

"No," Langer says, "they've got three heads."

He married an Ipswich girl, Janine, and they have a daughter, Courtney.

"We went to the same primary school and high school," he recalls.

"We never got on. She fell for me when I got a job as a truckie's offsider
for Waltons.

"The muscles bulging out from the blue singlet were too much for her."

That was back in the mid-1980s, just before Langer transferred to Ipswich
Council's kerb and channel gang.

Nowadays, this product of Harry, a carriage builder on the railways, and
Rita, a cleaner at a pre-school and latter-day TV star, earns between $250,000
and $300,000 in endorsements and sponsorships and half that again playing for
the Broncos.

He does commercials for property developers, Australian House and Land,
Tip Top, Sony and Power's Brewery, and is part-owner of the Plains Video, a
large video store.

"He is recognised nationally, and that's what the large corporations want.

"He's becoming more selective in what he does, but even though he can
command $5,000 for a public speaking engagement, he will do it for nothing."

This is the key to one side of Langer's character - he hates public
speaking.

He believes he is the oratorical equivalent of a charged-down kick. He
feels he doesn't give value when speaking and, therefore, doesn't deserve a fee.

"I hate speeches," he says. "I just like playing footie."

Langer may unlock two of the greatest sociological-psychological mysteries
of the 20th century.

One is that hungry players make the best players.

The second is that highly organised, prepared players perform the best.

On the first point, Langer is still playing with the same commitment,
energy and enthusiasm as in 1987, when his Ipswich Jets coach, Tommy Raudonikis,
demanded the Queensland selectors choose him for the State of Origin team.

On the second, Langer says: "I hate playing the game before the weekend -
I mentally drain myself.

"I like to relax and think about the game on the morning of the match, or
maybe the day before - that's if the races aren't on."

Langer has consigned to the coach's cupboard the image of the halfback as
a robot who reports for work with a briefcase full of computer printouts and a
copy of The Financial Review.

The five-eighth is a reversal of the Cartesian philosophy of "I think,
therefore I am".

"I learnt from Wally Lewis," Langer says.

"He's one of the best readers of the game. In the semi-final against
Illawarra, while one of our blokes was playing the ball, I saw a gap between
their front-rower and the next man.

"I ran for it and stepped inside. Riolo, the Steeler fullback, was on the
line, and I knew I could get the ball down.

"The other try I scored, I just followed Kerrod Walters. Maddo (Terry
Matterson) tapped it on to me.

"I've been following Kerrod a bit more lately. There was a time when I got
lazy and didn't tail him."

Suggest to Alf that he has clearly been thinking about the fact he must
move forward when Walters does, and he says the idea has not occupied his
cerebellum for long.

Kerrod was formerly called "Speedbump" because he slowed down his runners
with jittery, stuttery steps.

Alf says: "He's picking his mark better now, and that's why I chase him.
He's also taking pressure off me as first receiver."

Suggest to Langer that he spends the first 20 minutes of most games
watching, rather than running, and he agrees.

"I like to see where the fullback stands," he says, "and which forward is
slow."

Further suggest that a detailed analysis of a video of the opposition
would provide him with this information, allowing him to attack from the start
of a game, and he points out: "They don't do the same thing every game.

"Teams that play the Broncos lift themselves, so I might get a wrong
impression of a bloke's ability.

"Anyway it would drain me."

It seems Alf sees a picture of play the way a photographic shutter records
a shot. One click, and it's all there in his mind.

Brisbane's coach, Wayne Bennett, appears to allow full expression to his
players' talents, overcoming any complaint of "my medulla oblongata is very full
of data".

The Broncos' international centre, Chris Johns, says: "If Benny
(Bennett)tells us too much detail about the opposition, we don't do well.

"So if he wants to exploit a weakness he might just say at training, 'Kick
a high ball over to that side'.

"We've got a team full of internationals and Origin players, so why
wouldn't he coach that way?"

Gaining acceptance into the community of representative players can be
difficult.

It is the one issue which causes Langer's brow to crease and a mask of
anger to cover his face.

"Some of the senior players didn't want me in the side," he says of his
Origin debut for Queensland.

"It was only Tommy's push that got me in. That hurt. It was an awkward
time."

Even when Langer was chosen, he believes he was not fully accepted,
especially by Bennett, then coach of the Origin team.

"Wayne Bennett was worried about my defence," Langer recalls.

"He raised it at a team meeting - where I should stand, and so on."

This was a time when five-eighth Lewis was the Queensland captain, and
tended to take a cover defending role, the task normally assigned to halfbacks.

Langer says: "Paul Vautin stood up for me.

"He said, 'Alf's a Queenslander and won't let us down'.

"I ended up defending in the line. We won the next two Origin games, and I
scored the winning try in the Origin decider and won Man of the Match.